Lindsay Lohan’s arrests indirectly launched the Kardashian reality TV empire.

Evidence

A few months later, Paris Hilton spent a few weeks in jail for violating her probation for an earlier alcohol-related reckless driving charge. The Simple Life aired its last episode on August 5, 2007. Lindsay Lohan planned to release her own reality show on E!, but she pulled out of the project after being arrested for cocaine possession and driving under the influence. Needing to plug the hole in programming for fall, E! announced a new reality show from Bunim Murray Productions and American Idol host Ryan Seacrest: Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Poptimism opened the door for Paris Hilton, and now Hilton opened it further to accommodate the entire Kardashian family. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 160

Categorization

• QUESTION: The causal chain (Lohan’s pullout creating a programming hole filled by the Kardashians) is the kind of serendipitous media-history mechanism worth remembering precisely.
• CANDY: That ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ exists partly because Lohan got arrested is a fun, specific tidbit.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 160
• XREF: connects to: A leaked sex tape helped catalyze the Kardashian reality show’s launch